Wednesday, July 08, 2009

A day started low, then climaxed and still going

I came to the store in the morning only to find out there's no running water. The water company came out twice, the mall management people ran through the roof and couldn't find the issue. At about 11:25, the box of tea I had anxiously waited for arrived. But I was not in the right mindset to tasting any. At the end of the day, a friend of a friend came save the day. Apparently, a crew of workers worked in the store next to mine over night, I suspect they shut off my water unintentionally. I said "suspect" because they deny any responsibility although anyone knows it's too big of an incident right after they left I had no water. It kills my mood even thinking of it now. Nevertheless, I am just happy the water is back and I don't have to run to the next building to pee. For the most part of the agonizing day, I thought it'd end this way at a more intense level. But...

A couple of tea heads showed up unannounced, I thought what a perfect timing yet what a bad timing. Juggling between the water outage, running to strange restroom multiple times, and trying to make tea with limited water reserve, what a mess I told myself. This was when tea magically turned my day down side up.

Looking back at my tea journey, I recognize some more obvious periods, began as naive, subjective, then technical and more subjective. Then the next was trying to be "Zen" stage, yes, trying as in a artificially way to repress other aspects of life with tea, condensing all of that to emphasize on "peace" and "zen". While there is nothing wrong with peace in mind and zen to itself, I was not entirely "full" during that stage. I also hate it when Zen had to be staged intentionally, artificially. I notice the dullness in my writing, in my tea description to the point where I some what gave up. My mind was dull, clogged by techniques, methods and tea science.

We human live in herds, we feed off each other's intelligence with the right minded. Thanks to tea, it brought those sheep into my life. My dullness melted away, a surge of flood came rushing through my mind and emotions. As this new batch of teas are the high light of my tea career so far, my senses and being also reached a new realm today accompanied by these teas and a philosopher plus an artist. Ever since I began getting to know the Chinese Classic Zhou Yi (I-Ching), I see things a little differently than I used to. I am having difficulty pin pointing what it is, but it just is.

Here I'll show you a few tea descriptions and it shall give you an idea. We had total of 8 teas all new to me.

Ni Wei Yi, Affectionate Tail Ant. The name is endearing not to mention intriguing. Ni has no direct translatable term in English actually. Picture a girl leaning against her lover quietly, none of the public affection gestures that we considered as affectionate in the western world. Simple as that, something pure and innocent about it. As the tea unfolded its personality, we were in awe where it was leading us toward. The aroma seemed so near yet away, a forest full of flowers opened up a corridor for Snow White, excitement, curiosity and a lost soul in this beautiful surrounding. That was the first infusion. By the second infusion, my mind had Snow White picking Spring flowers right after the very last snow fall. The freshness, the preciousness came with singing and bird chirping all in my cup. 3rd infusion described by IR as cracked chestnuts wrapped in spinach buried in a chicken under the ground, then a flower grow on it, I added a colorful mushroom next to it. Some of you might think we were on mushrooms. :P

Da Wu Zi, Big Dark Purple, a special present to myself. The tea has a powerful female presence, started with a softer image, Elizabeth Taylor at 30 in black and white (mine) on the beach in a bikini (IR's), next infustion is a CEO of a fortune 500 company (mine) in a dark chocolate bikini (IR's). The flower aroma is strangely beautiful yet powerful in a dark and a little kinky way. It consumed my upper respiratory system, flooded me with Qi. By 3rd infusion, it was Venus in a red devil outfit with flaming fire burning from my back. It was powerful. By the 4th infusion, cloud has lifted me up from the neck up. The texture of the tea was melted black pearl (IR's). If you get a chance to go to Japan, fish up a wild oyster with a giant black pearl, please lick it and tell me what it feels like. I imagine this tea feels like that. The amazing thing is the linkage of black pearl and Dark Purple in the name. After the black pearl imagination, I realized the name also is dark, while the black pearl has an array of pearl glow ends with dark purple. These tea farmers are no dummies I said, they don't name something randomly, just like the other weird names.

I am laughing as I write this disclaimer: If you purchased these teas and did not have the same effect, there is no refund. :P

No comments: